


Imperfect, Not Broken

by Cocoremy



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Drama & Romance, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Drama, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23718793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cocoremy/pseuds/Cocoremy
Summary: He builds something beautiful just to set it on fire. Katara/Zuko. Mildly AU.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 69





	Imperfect, Not Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Coco: In these truly wild times, I come bringing you a Zutara fic. Zuko is banished to a monastery instead of going to hunt the Avatar. He is angsty. Let me know if you like it. I'm considering writing more chapters. 乁༼☯‿☯✿༽ㄏ May your pandemic be peaceful.

He builds something beautiful just to set it on fire.

And worse, he knows this. He feels it in the clench of his belly right before he strikes. He likes to watch his work turn to ash before his eyes. The shot of flame is a lullaby. A smoke plume follows to burn the memory of it in his nostril. Every memory of it is special, although they run together in a quilt of moments that he stitches for himself at night. It is almost a comfort in itself, the ritual he's made.

He must be willing to give up what loves. He must be willing to sacrifice beauty and comfort. He must be willing, period.

There is no hesitation anymore. There was… at first. He approached his works of art with the first stabbing heartbeats of a nervous child left alone. His attacks were clumsy punches, first tries with awkward fists like he remembered in the beginning of his training from the monks.

But he got better. He always does. There is no lack of discipline on his part. He tackles everything obsessively.

He takes this one out tonight. There is something unique in it. He nicked the corners of the wood ever-so-slightly on the corner. It makes it all the more beautiful, because it's broken. For a moment, he stares down at it and it becomes precious to him. It _is_ him. Imperfect. Unlovable. Unworthy.

He wants to salvage it, but that would mean mercy. It would be something he has never given himself and never can risk if he knows what's good for him. And he knows, so he burns it.

The wood goes fast. The ornate petals he's carved into a delicate knob of violet wood blow up into flames. He inhales the smoke and destruction, letting it fill him. He is the fire. He is the pile of ashes that remains after. The remains are easily dealt with. He sweeps them into a pile and blows them out over the castle wall. This castle on the mountain is much smaller than the one he came from, but he can't think about that.

He does this dance for so long that when she comes, he no longer cares how it looks. His teacher, the old man, says that she is a peaceful prisoner of war to be guarded by the monks. She is not a threat. He knows she watches. Let her. She sneaks into shadows at night to see what keeps him up, what causes these dark circles beneath his eyes. She will know that he is insane or at least whisper it to others. Better for him, he knows. He needs no distraction. His hatred is a blade whittled down by time and sharpened by patience.

The rumors do not start. She averts her eyes at breakfast. They take it together often. He doesn't care at first because it makes sense for them not to dine with the monks, beyond when he has special breakfasts with his teacher.

Until one morning, she pours tea in her glass and accidentally chips the rim of her cup with the metal kettle. She holds the delicate china up to the light streaming in from the window. He hates the loving gaze she gives it. His stomach grabs him with nausea out of instinct.

"Throw it away," he tells her immediately. Without thinking, he goes to reach for it. He wants to see it crushed into dust. It is imperfect. She snatches the cup back, sloshing tea over the side.

"No." Her nostrils flare. A spark of anger rises in her face, a face he barely pays attention to before. "I want it." She downs the tea and keeps the cup for herself. He wraps his hands into fists under the table so she can't see his rage. He considers causing it to burst into flame beside her, but that will be troublesome.

Let her keep her imperfect cup. He leaves her, but now, she is lodged in his mind. He hates her for this. She becomes the chip in his concentration and brain. He finds it harder to burn his creations. He finds himself looking down at them like they might be something precious, like his blood-soaked hands can make something beautiful.

He burns it all the same. He must not give into comfort. She stops following him. One day, by chance, he drifts by her doorway. She has left it lazily open. There's so much trust in the world with this gesture that he nearly spits on the ground in disgust. He spots the cup, chipped and ugly, on her windowsill. It's lit by the sun as if might be beautiful. He grits his teeth hard together, unable to see anything but black.

"Don't you dare."

He turns. He hadn't seen her coming. She glares at him with every fiber of her being. It enforces him. He breathes her in like the smoke from his nightly ritual. _Yes, hate me._

She pushes past him and slams the door in his face. The cup and her swinging hair is the last thing he sees. He stares at the grain of the door. It is a solid polished wood, unlike the softer wood that he carves. He never takes on anything that requires more than his trusted carving knife.

What an idiot. Let her keep her chipped cup. He considers her insanity and wonders if it's contagious. They should send a healer from the base of the mountain up to the castle, but she's supposed to be a healer herself. The women down the mountain can look into her spirit though. Never mind. He doesn't have time to make guesswork of a guest he had no interest in hosting.

He brings this up to the monks the next morning and it's only when he tries to explain his hatred of the chipped cup that he realizes that he sounds like the one who needs a healer. He shuts his mouth. He goes to practice. He carves wooden flowers surrounding a girl and burns it that night. He's no longer satisfied with blowing the ashes. He stomps them into the ground this time and leaves an ugly mark on the courtyard floors.

When he wakes in the morning, feeling childish and stupid, he seeks out to clean it. She's already there. She senses him coming since he wasn't expecting anyone and says nothing. He stares at her while she rubs away the ash. There's a frantic energy to her movements. He hates it, but he cannot stop watching until she cleans it all. Finally, she sits back on her heels with satisfaction. The tiles gleam as if they weren't the sight of last night's funeral pyre. He forces himself away and stalks toward the monks.

"Lock me up," he tells them. His teacher sets his lips into a fine line but doesn't disagree. He always gets what he wants. The monks send him to the mountain pass, where tunnels have been forged centuries ago with magma from deep inside the earth. He brings only necessities with him and picks off wood for carving along the way. They lock the sacred door behind him. He keeps time by the thin sliver of light that comes through the ceiling of the tunnel. Days pass. He wears himself out to the point of exhaustion. His food dwindles, his work burns, and he knows the monks will come for him soon. He counts the days. Seven days. A week. It feels like a century and yet, it's not enough because he's still thinking of that chip in the cup.

Why keep anything like that? He snarls as the thought causes him to nick tonight's creation. His last night and he has made something imperfect. He howls at the sight of it. He clutches it close to his chest and seethes. His focus was the only thing he had, and she has taken it from him.

When the monks release him, they stare warily at him. He whispers gritted thanks and makes his way back to the castle. He sprints. They do not stop him. They cannot. He is faster than any of them, even his teacher who is stronger than he looks.

He finds her in one of the temples. She watches incense burn. He hates how she bites her lip as the stick burns down, but the sight of it freezes him in the doorway. She stares at the burning thing slowly in an agonizing fashion. He never thought to do that, to make something smolder. He ripped off his bandages immediately. His fires lasted seconds.

Finally, she notices him. He can't help his heavy breathing since he's run the entire way. She doesn't say anything, just stares at him for a moment, and turns back to her incense. They burn it for the old gods, who have abandoned his people a long time ago no matter what the monks say. If they had stayed, would he be like this?

They don't meet for a week after that. He burns his things in the courtyard, taking care to make sure they are perfect. The eyes of his teacher are upon his back like a heavy brick. So heavy that one day, he snaps.

"What?"

His teacher bends his head to the side. "You are changing. You should consider that." And then his teacher just leaves, leaving him stunned to silence. He glowers at the wall as if it might offer up an answer to his plight.

Changing? So, his teacher has noticed his lapsed focus. There is only one thing he can think of to do.

That night, he hears her coming. It's the first time she's come in a while. He tenses when he hears her try to mask her feet, but her senses are truly sloppy compared to his own. His fists shake by his side at the cruelty of it all. She has not trained from birth. She walks like a newborn to an enemy and yet, it's his attention that's broken. He has to fix this.

He sets tonight's creation on the ground. It is a lotus. Perfect in every way, polished to a finish. Nobody would guess he could make something so beautiful.

"I know you're there."

She slides out from the shadows and leans against the column. "Why do you do this?"

"Because I'm me," he replies. It is the simplest answer. She breathes out evenly. He hates the feeling of her eyes, so he meets her with his own gaze. She doesn't turn away. A shimmer of his teacher is in her eyes, eyes that used to not haunt him like this. Now, it is all he can think of. She is the chip. "You should leave this place." She will unravel him.

Her cheeks darken. "I can't. You know that."

Of course, he does. It was not his choice that she came. It was _forced_ upon him like everything in life.

"You're an ungracious guest," he tells her flatly. "You're ruining my focus."

She raises an eyebrow, so slowly that he doesn't realize his mistake until she takes a cautious step forward.

"I don't even see you anymore. You came to find _me_ last time. You've hated me ever since I took that cup."

Her words wrap around his head and squeeze with a serpent's grip. He stares down at his hands, wondering how it got to this. She is the chip in the cup, the tarnish to the wood, but he cannot burn her. She cannot leave. They are two flailing ships in a sea that they didn't choose to sail.

He has lost control. He wants to hate her for it, too.

"Why did you even keep that stupid cup?" He throws at her. If she had just let him destroy it, this would have never happened.

"Why not?" She snorts and throws her hands up. "It was chipped, not broken."

"It's imperfect. It's ugly." He's breathing out smoke now. A dragon stirs in his belly. He cannot understand her. He has always been able to unravel an enemy's mind.

Her eyes narrow. "You're deranged. It's perfectly fine and it's mine, so don't touch it." She turns on her heel and hesitates, as if she wants to add something more. He is reminded of how young they are. She doesn't add her last thought. She leaves him to light the lotus on fire. He thinks he smells salt in the air, but he doesn't stop. He throws fire at the wood until he collapses onto the ground. He pushes himself to clean it before pulling himself into bed. He will never let her clean up his ritual again.

Imperfect, not broken. He closes his eyes tightly and wishes the sentiment away. She has cursed him without knowing it.

He takes himself on a hike into the mountain on the next day before his teacher can stop him. After two hours, he stops to take food. He notices a powerful tree in the distance with orange flowers starting to bud. One of the branches is hanging off a broken end, burnt by an old lightning strike. He lifts his hand to finish the job, but nothing comes up. His fingers curl into his palm. He cannot manage it. The tree will keep growing. It's not like the dead things he makes. He turns away from it. Somehow, it has also become the enemy. Enemies surround him. He travels the rest of the day for hours until the sun dips down.

When he comes back, his muscles burn from the trek. He needs water. His steps plant him in front of the fountain of the temple. He throws his head under one of the spraying spouts and drinks greedily. It soaks him down to his shirt, but he doesn't care. The cool night air even against his tired wet skin is nothing. He has had so much worse.

He walks to him room, but the smell catches him. He knows it too well. Smoke pulls at him like a siren's call. He is helpless to it. She leads him to the courtyard, where he finds her in his usual place.

First, he rages inside that she is in his special place. Second, he stops to see what she is doing.

She presses her hands together in front of a stick of incense. He's read her people still offer prayers. He only prays to himself. Who is she talking to?

Her soft whispers are in a language he doesn't speak. He had no time for linguistics in his training. He strains to catch a hard word that rubs like sandpaper against his ear. It is so unlike the common tongue they speak. He watches her, knowing that unlike him, she cannot sense him.

Her burning is slow and mournful. She watches the incense burn down, prays a few more times, and lifts herself up. Like him, she carefully sweeps up any mess. He thinks she's going to leave and makes a move to dart down the corridor, but she stops. She hovers in his usual place. He watches curiously as she bends over to place a hand against the tile. It was the square he'd burnt the worst that last time when she cleaned up his mess. His breath hitches as she stoops down on her knees suddenly. She presses her lips against it lovingly, whispering something in that ancient language.

He rips himself away before she can catch him. He hears her footsteps retreat in the dark. She's gone. He is left with the memory of her lips against the tile.

"I heard her praying the other night," he tells his teacher vaguely. "What language is that?"

His teacher doesn't look up from his work on a scroll, but he doesn't miss the tilt in the old man's lips. "An ancient one of her tribe's old dialect, I imagine. Why don't you ask her?" There was a time when he referred to his teacher as something other than old man.

His teacher has him there. _Because then she will know I was watching._ He begins to consider this as them getting even, since she watched him burning things for so long.

"I believe that her people pray to ease the burdens of others," his teacher adds, unprompted. "They rarely think of themselves. They are natural healers."

Natural healers. Perhaps that's why she hung onto the cup. She couldn't bear to see it go to waste, despite its obvious imperfection. He eases his posture. Relief finds him for the first time in weeks. He takes his tea and says nothing more to his teacher, contented by this knowledge somehow. He doesn't have a problem, she does. This is comforting.

He continues on for some time. He trains, burns, and studies. Sometimes, he sees her drifting in and out of one of the temples. She prefers to go the smaller, rattier one. He rolls his eyes at that. She clearly just likes ugly things. He smirks at this. His pride grows back. His focus sharpens again. She drifts from his mind once he accepts that her madness is her own. They pass each other like ships in the night on their stormy seas. Their control has come back.

It did for a while at least.

One night, he hears her after his burning ritual. Her cries drift to him all the way from the temple. Despite himself, he goes. He follows her tears and recognizes that scent of salt, remembering and denying how it was in the air the night he burnt the lotus. Carefully, he climbs the steps of the temple. He finds her in front of her damned incense again, but this time is different.

She holds the cup. His eyes narrow to slits. Gods, that stupid cup. It has started everything. If they destroy the cup, they fix everything. He can revert things back to the beginning. He will twist time in his hands like a puppet master pulling on strings of a cruel destiny.

He goes for it, but she senses him. Perhaps her senses aren't so dull in the end. She levels a block to his fire, and he stills.

"You've gone mad," he tells her bluntly. "You're crying over a cup."

"Why do you care?" Her glassy eyes say that he's said the exact wrong thing. "You don't understand anything." She holds the cup like it's a precious artifact. He wants to scream at her for loving something so stupid and ugly. The chip glints in the light. His jaw is so tight that it pops as he opens his mouth to hurl more words at her.

"It's broken. Throw it away. Burn it."

"I won't," she whispers hoarsely. "I won't let you destroy it like you do everything else."

"Those things are mine to destroy."

"And I told you this one was mine to keep."

He snarls because he is at the end of his rope. "Fine." He throws up his hands. "Cry over your stupid little cup. If it disturbs my sleep again, I'll turn it to ash." She sucks in a breath and tucks the cup closer to her chest. His heart burns. Her reaction freezes him to the floor for a moment.

Why love something broken?

He has not realized that the question has actually left his mouth.

"Because it's still worthy," she replies. Her voice wavers. Her eyes rake over him. He goes cold for the first time in his life. They are no longer talking about the cup.

The words of his teacher drift back to him. Her people do not pray for themselves, only for others. He cannot help the hand that goes to his scar.

He leaves her. He doesn't return to his room. He goes back to the forest and sets the broken tree ablaze. For the first time in years since the incident, he drops to his knees and cries until he and the tree are nothing.

Imperfect, not broken. He digs his hand into the dirt. When he doesn't return, the monks come for him. His teacher sighs.

"I said you were changing," the old man says and shakes his head sadly at the ashy stump from the tree. "I didn't say it was wrong."

The monks leave him before he can try to fight them all. His teacher tells him to come back when his anger is gone. He lets out a bitter laugh as they retreat. His anger will never be gone. He roars into the dark night. There is no moon, all the better for him. He pounds his hands onto his chest and screams.

On the fifth day, he's spent. There is no anger on an empty stomach and his foraging skills do not last long. He drags his sorry self back to the castle and realizes how little of a castle it is. It is not truly a palace, but rather a prison. His people used to use it solely for religious retreats and a place to stash the monastery. It was where his father sent him in disgrace.

_To be contained._

Why would his father keep a chipped cup?

The answer: he would not. He _did_ not.

He's delirious, he realizes as he pulls himself to the fountain. The water is so sweet to his dry mouth. He dreams of chipped cups raining down around him until he is suddenly choking against water.

After a while, there is darkness, and then he wakes. It's not his room. It is hers. He can smell the incense in it. He turns his head to the side to see the early morning light streaming in. The blasted cup is on the sill. If he just lifts his hand, he can take it out.

"Don't even think about it." It is the second time she has said something like this to him.

Her stern voice is there. Of course, it is. She must've pulled him from the fountain. He's in a dry shirt. She changed him. Some part of him is furious. Another part, deeper in the shadows of himself, delights in it. He turns away from her, unable to meet her gaze.

"The monks will think of it as improper if they found me in your room," he informs her bluntly.

She scoffs. "I don't care. I saved a prince drowning in the fountain tonight. They can get over it with their precious morals." He knows her people are warmer, ironically, with their interactions. Men and women can be around each other easily. It's not this way here. Suddenly, he is aware of how much her room smells and looks like a woman's room. She's collected dried orange flower petals in the broken cup, he realizes. They are the same kind of flowers from the tree he burned.

"Oh," the sound escapes him. He turns to her, genuinely sorry for a moment. She must've visited the tree before. Her somber eyes make his heart betray him as it stops for a second.

"The monks told me," she says tightly. She stares at the cup and his gut rolls at the sad smile that comes at her lips. "Did you burn it to the root?"

"No," he says, feeling suddenly ashamed that he burnt it at all.

"Good. I'll go see if it can be salvaged." She leaves him in her room. He hates his tired body for drifting into sleep. His teacher visits him, says nothing of his wicked presence in an unmarried woman's bed, and leaves him. He can continue training when he heals. He drifts off to sleep. His dreams are filled with her eyes meeting his stare over the edge of the chipped cup.

When she comes back, it's a day later. She helps him to the bath. He blurts out harsh words about how he can undress himself and get into the bath just fine. He implies that she is lewd. She breathes out slowly and stomps away from him, telling him to call her when he's managed to clean himself. He boils the water until it's almost too much and sinks himself underneath the surface. When he opens his eyes, the copper sides of the bath remind him of the color of the flower petals. When did she collect them? He darts back and forth in the bath, churning the liquid soap into a frothing bubbly blanket. He scrubs every inch of his body clean.

"Are you done?" She pops her head in, unashamed, only to see him rising out of the bath. Her cheeks darken and she turns away, holding out a towel. He stares at her face, taking his time wrapping the towel. Why is she mad? He knows why faces darken with blood. Anger, of course. Their fingers brush as he takes the towel. He wraps it around himself and she waits by the door now, seeing as his legs are sturdier. She tells him his lungs will be better by tomorrow and not to fight her when she heals him tonight. She has to bring up the water left inside him. He finds himself surprised when he doesn't disagree under her guiding hands that glide mere inches over his chest.

He has been unable to do his ritual since the tree. When he gets the itch in his fingers to carve, he drops his knife. He returns to training. His teacher regards him carefully over tea in their morning session. The old man is pleased, but he doesn't know why his teacher is happy. Nothing is different.

Except that he is lighter. He reasons that the tree meant something to him, even though he still feels bad for burning something she liked. The tree must've been cathartic. Yes, he decides, because it's a nice tidy excuse that he likes.

This goes on for some time. The cycle continues. They fall into the dance of avoiding one another. He goes back to his rituals, but they are different. He finds himself crafting simpler objects. They are more rod-like, far more like the incense she burns. He watches them burn down slowly. He finds that he enjoys the time it takes to watch it. It's peaceful. He places a hand on his chest, thinking of the way she expelled the water from his lungs. Perhaps she accidentally brought out some of his hatred along with it.

But, at this thought, the old dragon within him roars. He steels himself. The focus slips again. His wood goes up in a burst of flames without him meaning to do it. Rage is a second skin for him. It is the easiest thing for him to find within himself. Like the fountain, he drinks greedily from it until he works himself into an angry frenzy. He goes to the training halls without sleep to practice.

This time he doesn't hear her come.

He turns to see her watching him. He is half-naked with only training breeches on. Sweat coats his skin. Sometimes, it burns his scar, but he no longer cares about such sensations.

The sensation of her eyes though is different. It hits him like a blade to the chest.

"Yes?" he grunts because she hasn't said anything. She is just watching him like a lecher. He suddenly feels like a young maiden in need of covering herself after getting caught in the bath. In fact, he thinks about the way her face darkened in the bath. He thinks about what an explosive feeling anger is.

She says nothing and turns away, leaving him to work himself into a rage all over again.

At breakfast, he nearly tackles his teacher. "What emotions are close to rage? To fury? To anger? What other things makes blood come to your face like you want to spit in an enemy's eye?"

The old man has lit a pipe this morning. "Love, desire, lust. The fight against those will make one especially red." His teacher says it so simply that he finds himself reeling back. His teacher can't be serious. He bolts up from the table and runs like a child. His teacher doesn't try to stop him.

Where is he going? He doesn't know.

He runs until he grows tired. He finds himself at the old tree. She has been here, cultivating the ground. Saplings are sprouting up from the ground, perfectly spaced out from one another to now grow a grove instead of one giant tree. There is a strength in numbers. The ashes are nearly gone. Behind, she's left a tribute of a small god from her people. The smiling woman mocks him with her sculpted beauty and wink. He promised himself that she would never clean up another of his messes.

The universe sent her to destroy me. Of this, he is sure. What other excuse can there be?

He slinks back to the castle in the dead of night. The monks must be shaking their heads, wondering how he can be so childish. He decides that his teacher is wrong or she is sick to want imperfect things. He cannot decide which of these options he wants to be true.

His ritual tonight is half-hearted. She meets him again when he turns around. His senses are slipping.

"How are the trees?" She asks, as if the moment where she stared at him in the training halls never happened. He falters for a moment. She is unlike anything he's ever dealt with.

"Fine."

A beat passes between them. His desire to destroy pushes against his better judgement to go back to his room.

"Why were you watching me?" It is a demand. His tone is hostile, guarded. She lifts her chin stubbornly to meet the challenge.

"Why not?"

He stumbles over this. He wasn't expecting that. "But, there's a reason." He thinks to the chipped cup. "I think you like to watch broken things."

Her eyes harden into diamond chips. "Do you think you're broken?" Her anger confuses him.

And nobody has dared to ask him that before.

Of course, he wants to scream at her. He finds himself taking a step forward. His rage is hot inside him, but there is something else there. The dragon of hatred in his chest has brought a brother with him tonight. He finds himself closing the distance between them before his mind can catch up. He catches her by the wrist when she tries to flee. She has taunted him long enough.

"Don't mock me," he mutters. The hoarse desperation in his voice sounds far away.

She glares at him, defiant. "I'm not. You're not broken. You've never been." She gives him a long appraising stare from the top of his head to his feet. "I don't know what mirror you're looking in."

He releases her before the dragons can whisper anything else. She parts her lips. Disappointed? Expectant? He can't spend all night deciphering her emotions. He throws himself into his bed and leaves her out in the night to take herself back to her room. That was close. Too close. He presses a hand against his beating heart. There are no mirrors in his room. He has never allowed them.

He hates the twitch of a smile that comes onto his face as he drifts to sleep. He cannot let himself give into comfort. Using his pillow, he buries his face underneath his bedding until all the light is blocked out. He sleeps like the dead.

She grows bolder. She meets him at the courtyard every night. For the first few nights, he says nothing. On the fourth, she lights her incense and takes a mirroring place on the other side of the courtyard. He glares at her, but she says nothing. She prays in her language.

On the sixth night, he finally asks her what she prays about.

To his surprise, the dust of red comes back to her face. Under the moonlight, her people's spirit, she tries to dance out of the battle. He narrows his eyes. He has no mercy for those who walk into an arena and try to retreat.

"I pray for the gods to deliver peace," she says finally when she can tell that his stare will not vanish. "I pray for it often."

Oh. This satisfies and disappoints him. There is something else in her stare, but he cannot press her. He's worried about what she might say.

He is worried she is praying for his peace. The angry dragon snaps its jaws inside him. He burns up his carved simple tree and leaves her in the smoky courtyard after. Salt registers but he cannot deal with that. He cannot believe that she would cry for him.

His teacher grows irritated by the day. The old man watches him warily, as if he is a snake in the grass.

"What?" He asks, accusingly. For a brief moment, he believes that perhaps the monks have finally grown tired of him.

"Change is not bad," his teacher says simply. The old man leaves. He stares at the closed door. What the hell was that about? He eats with a sour stomach because of his irritation. His teacher goes away on a trip with the half of the other monks. He spends double time on patrols outside the castle, just in case. Sometimes, bandits try their luck with the treasures hidden deep under the castle in ancient vaults. They haven't had much trouble since he arrived though. He is the castle's personal attack dog.

She meets him at the edge of the castle. He can see distress in her face.

"What is it?"

"The remaining monks said they needed to go the tunnels," she explains. "Everyone is gone."

They are alone. This thought pricks him before he can think to ask why, but he knows why. Tonight is the new moon. She is weakest tonight, but his kin are strong. There are rituals to be performed. They've entrusted the castle to them. He says as much to her, but this doesn't take away the stress in her eyes. He wonders if she's worried to actually be alone with him, but she's right in front of him. Before, she had the calming presence of thirty monks to rely on.

She has nobody but him now.

Perhaps she will realize how vulnerable she is. There is nobody to stop him from fighting her. Nobody to stop...

He freezes at the gate of the courtyard. She calls his name, worried. His blood turns to lava inside him. She can't keep doing this. He presses a hand hard against his chest, feeling the brotherly dragons rearing their heads. His anger rears up against the new, stranger dragon. The latter he cannot trust. It is too new. His eyes dart to the dark sky.

His treacherous thoughts think of more than punches. He drops his head in shame. She has not taken the message. Her hand reaches out to touch his shoulder. He is a young man with nothing but reflexes. He pins her against the wall easily.

"Don't," he warns. "Don't touch me."

He has made the mistake of letting her treat him far too intimately before in the bath and with the healing.

He tells her not to touch him and yet, he doesn't release her from the wall. Her eyes grow wider by the second. A sick sense of satisfaction washes over him before the shame can catch up. Finally, she has realized he is a threat. He is dangerous.

And yet...

His fingers will not release her. He tells them to stop. He thinks of uncurling his vice-like grip, but his body doesn't obey. The new dragon roars inside him, but there is no burning hatred. It is nothing but the strangest warmth he's ever felt. He's diseased. He has to be.

She says his name again. He has almost forgotten her, but that would be impossible. He says nothing, merely leans in to rest his forehead against the wall beside her head. Her breath hitches and she freezes with his close proximity. He doesn't release her, but he doesn't move away. His breath comes out with the tiniest plume of smoke, imitating the incense she adores so much. He wonders if his body has fully betrayed him.

"I make beautiful things to destroy them," he tells her and forces her unpinned hand to touch his scar. She doesn't pull away. "I was thrown out by my own father for dishonoring him. My uncle chose to stay on my side. I no longer address him as that. He is merely my teacher. He lost everything when he chose to become a monk, all to follow me. I'm an ungrateful beast with nothing but rage inside me. I am broken. Stop staying that I'm not."

She whispers something in her old stupid language. He lets his forehead bounce gently off the wall with agitation.

"Stop talking in words I can't understand."

He forces himself back to look at her. She stares into his golden eyes. Her hand has not dropped from his scar. Under the absence of moonlight, her people's spirit is not there to see her eyes soften on him in the soft light of the lantern from the wall.

"I lied to you before," she confesses. His stomach drops. Here it comes. He closes his eyes. The betrayal will follow. He knows to expect it. Her fingers gently brush his scar. He freezes from the kind gesture.

"What were you saying?" he demands, but his tone has lost its harsh edge.

"I was praying that the spirits would let you see yourself the way that I see you."

He cannot help himself. He will not be denied.

"Tell me I'm broken." He is begging.

"I refuse."

He brings his face closer. Her hot breath fans over his mouth. His pulse races.

"Tell me I'm broken."

"I will never lie to you again," she promises. The gentleness strikes him worse than any blade could.

Their noses brush.

"Tell me what you see then," he orders. His teacher, uncle, and the others cannot save her from the hole she's dug for herself. Her lips are so close to his. The angry dragon is losing the fight, but he still holds a claw in the game. He still has her pinned to the wall after all.

"I see anger." Her voice creaks as the blush comes back. It's a blush, he realizes stupidly. This is what people call it. "I see a beautiful young man who creates works of arts with his hands, only to burn them at night, in a strange ritual that seems to soothe his rage. I see someone who was made to feel bad for being a human. I see someone worthy. I see someone who has worked harder than nearly anyone, only to continue to turn on himself."

She doesn't stop his kiss. He knows he is rough. He cannot stop himself. He is on her, pressing her into the wall, earning a wonderful groan of both restraint and pleasure from her lips.

_I see someone worthy_

She strokes his scar. He breaks away. Their hot breath fills the space between them. The monks will be gone all night. He drags her into his arms before she can protest. There is something he needs her to do. He takes her to her room. She lets out a surprised yelp as he drops her to the ground and marches her into the room.

The cup is on the sill. He stares at the missing bit of china. She sits on the bed, her brows stitched together in confusion. He takes the cup, gently now, from the window. He lights the small candle next to her bed.

"Tell me why you kept this," he says. This time, his husky whisper is like a lover's caress instead of a hot demand. She drops her gaze to it. Her fingers run over the jagged edge, earning a tiny pinprick of blood when she presses too hard. She starts to cry.

He waits patiently for the crying to stop, but it comes like a waterfall.

He tries again. "Why did you keep this if it wasn't perfect?" He needs the answer.

She lifts her head and wipes away the tears on her sleeve. She set the cup down by the candle. Its sudden shadow cast a looming shape in the room. Her eyes fill with fresh tears. He wonders what she is thinking. She leans forward and wraps her arms around him, burying her face into the crook of his neck. His skin sizzles from the heat of his body and her tears brushing against him. She smells of incense. He nervously closes his arms in around her. She is warm against him in her own way despite the coolness of her people.

"You're perfect to me," she whispers.

He refuses to burn anything beautiful again, least of all her, but he will hit her skin with heat that she desires. He sucks in a breath to inhale her, replacing the smell of smoke and hatred with incense and salt. Her ship calls to him in the distance. How did they ever find each other in this treacherous sea?

When his teacher comes back, he vows to call him uncle again.

His will lose honor when he marries her, he knows. He's already eighteen steps ahead of this night. Perhaps he'll broach that with her tonight or two months from now or three years if she hasn't tired of him. She dries her tears and pulls her head back. He thumbs away the last of the liquid, easily warming his finger to evaporate the water away.

She smiles at him. Her finger is still pricked with blood. He lifts it up and licks it off, enjoying the shudder it brings her.

"The monks are gone all night," he reminds her. "We have nobody to worry about but waking the spirits."

The blood rushes to her cheeks, but she doesn't avert her gaze. No. She brings her face close to him again to kiss him. Her fingers graze over his scar. He sighs into her touch as they tumble back onto the bed.

Imperfect, not broken.


End file.
